Divorce yourselves from the idea of a fancy wedding

By Malcolm Berko

Published: November 4, 2007

Dear Mr. Berko: I'm 24 and teach high school and my husband-to-be is the same age and teaches middle school. My parents would like to have a fancy wedding, which will cost them about $65,000 but they will have to borrow $20,000 to $25,000 to pay for the event. As an alternative, they have offered to give my fiance and me $45,000 if we just have a simple wedding attended by close family and several friends. My girlfriends want me to have a big wedding and so would I, but my fiance would rather take the money.

We've discussed this and decided to put the question to you and we will abide by your advice.

D.E., Oklahoma City

Dear D.E.: You have asked the wrong person because my bias "ain't” in your corner.

In my opinion, fancy weddings are for suckers and social climbing families who become giddy when their names appear in a newspaper's society section. Fancy weddings are for status-seeking brides and grooms who put on the dog to out-fancy members of their social milieu. The excessive costs for flowers, band, caterers, liquor, wedding favors, hors d'oeuvres, food, table decorations, gifts to bridesmaids and ushers, invitations, photography/videography, wedding cakes, venue rental, transportation, wedding gown, tuxedos, a church, a choir and all that other mishmash, minutia and memorabilia are patently ridiculous and laughable — a bloody waste of money. You may soon discover that the wedding industry is a pandering, crass, greedy commercial business with a spiraling culture of expenditures in which participating providers quickly increase the cost of their services and products by 35 to 50 percent.

Last year, more than 2.4 million weddings occurred in the U.S. Those couples and their families spent $88 billion, not counting the honeymoons, to celebrate with friends, preserve memories and satisfy social obligations. None of that is worth draining a bank account and going into debt for five years. You and your fiance may decide to go "splitsville” before your parents pay off their debt to finance your big party.

But the wedding planners know the right, emotional and image buttons to push to mesmerize the gushing bride and her socially conscious family. So those weddings are really about image and social competition, not commitment.

Now the answer to your question is easy providing you possess a few ounces of common sense. Take the $45,000 check and put it in their no-load growth mutual fund. In five years those funds could be worth $70,000 and in 10 years it could grow to $107,000. And if your union lasts a lifetime, that $45,000, if it earns 9 percent in a growth mutual fund for 40 years, would grow to $1.5 million. Frankly, you're both blithering idiots if you don't take the money and invest it.

That money will give you a huge head start on a comfortable retirement and both of you are really going to need it. Together you earn about $72,000 a year, with little expectation for a more generous income. And after 40 years of teaching you'll never be able to accumulate enough savings for a comfortable retirement, especially after buying a house and raising children.

Teachers are notoriously underpaid (though many deserve what they earn) and it's a lousy profession in which to earn a living. You may not realize it today, but that $45,000 (if you invest it in the no-load funds that I've recommended) will be the most valuable wedding gift you two will ever get. Take the money, invest it and don't look back.

Because I'm presumptuous enough to assume that you will take my advice, I'm recommending the following funds for that $45,000. I want you to forget you own them and I want you to keep them for the rest of your lives.

Invest $15,000 in T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation Fund that has a 12.6 percent average annual return for over 20 years. Now invest $15,000 into Fidelity Convertible Securities that has a 13.3 percent average annual 20-year return and Bruce Fund with a 13.2 percent 20-year average annual return. Meanwhile the five- and 10-year average annual returns for these funds are also in double digits and each fund is no-load. Reinvest all the dividends and capital gains and in 40 years you guys will be wealthy campers.

Please address your financial questions to Malcolm Berko, P.O. Box 1416, Boca Raton, FL 33429 or e-mail him at malber@comcast.net.

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